There are many ways of acquiring knowledge, and the act of repetition is a crucial way of knowing. Repetition is to penetrate ones brain, and reinforcing an idea into ones head. The human mind learns information, and this information is understood and stored into your brain, even if we do not realize it. The formula that repetition is equal to truth plays a chief role in how we gather knowledge. Although this formula to everyday man seems accurate, there are lies which often spread as truths through repetition. If we bring logic into this equation we can correctly state that the number of times a fact is repeated has nothing to do with its accuracy, especially in the instance of false statements. We can take a look into our everyday lives and see that by drilling ideas into our memory, society often accepts these notions as factual, and the consequences can be dire.
This idea of repetition taken as knowledge has been studied by some of the worlds leading philosophers and psychologists. One great philosopher who supported this was Nietzsche, in On Truth and Falsity in an Extramoral Sense, Nietzsche declares that ‘truth’ is a metaphor which is fixed by repetitive usage. Overall he states that truth comes from repetition. Many other studies have added that as human beings we have a predisposition to believe proclamations, not based on factual evidence but rather on mere repetition of the statements.
A prime example of belief through repetition is religion. Do people accept a truth because the theories have been repeated to them so many times? In Christianity, we can see in the gospels that there are four different accounts of the life of Jesus, and Christians do not doubt this. When I went to a Catholic school and performed my Hail Mary’s before class, it had been repeated to me on a daily basis that I altogether stopped questioning whether Mary actually performed a virgin birth to the son of God. The Bible repeats itself many times, an example is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, this is a reoccurring theme, and this remains the focus of many Christian’s thoughts and belief system. Saying this, are our biggest truths indeed false?
One of the most common practices of repetition is occurring in a student’s life. When we study we learn from repetition. We receive material, we write essays, we complete homework assignments, we take quizzes and tests, all on the same material until we are able to remember it and apply it. Malcolm X learned to read and write through repetition, he writes “ In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet everything printed on the first page, down to the punctuation marks…I read back, to myself, everything I’d written on the tablet. Over and over, aloud, to myself, I read my own handwriting…I woke up the next morning thinking about those words…” (Malcolm X 135) This went on until he did this for the entire dictionary and was eventually able to accept the words meanings as truth and was able to read novels and understand them. Students often accept knowledge taught in school as true because we have no prior opinion on the topics and we repeat the information over and over again and it would seem foolish to consider it false.
Our emotions can play an important role, and influence our perception of truth. When we are first told a fact, we are skeptical. However as we continue to hear the same fact repeatedly, we come to accept it as general knowledge. It is similar to the piece of parsley on your dish at a restaurant. For the first time, seeing a small plant on top of your food may seem bizarre and you may be questioning the restaurant. However as we continue to visit restaurants we see they all put a small parsley leaf on almost every dish and we now accept this as a part of the restaurant and the meal in our culture. If a fact is repeated by an authoritative figure for the first time however, we are more likely to believe it just as we would accept it if a high class, well known restaurant were to be the first to serve parsley with a meal, we would not doubt the restaurant. Even if we disagree with the authority at hand we are still more likely to accept what they say as true.
Repetition is all around us every day, in this modern world. It comes to us in the form of media. Repetition is an obvious, tactful way for companies to entice people to buy their products. Infomercials are programs on TV which are repeatedly shown day and night. The most famous products are those for weight loss. The heating pad which can make you drop inches in hours, is one of the most famous. If we were to use logic, we would know that this is virtually impossible. The ad for this is repeated so many times by various companies that the viewers buy into it and are influenced greatly by this repetition. Another example is catchy tunes on the radio and TV; there are tunes which can be stuck in our head for days thus reminding us of the product. The consumer believes the repeated propaganda of the products to be true and leads us into believing - in many cases - false information.
In history we can see how repetition twisted our thoughts. History throughout time has repeated its cause in order to get the common people to accept a leader’s view as truth. Propaganda is usually a main tool in obtaining power of the people. We can see this in World War II, where Hitler used propaganda to create unity and a powerful Germany, which resulted in the death of millions of Jews. In a newspaper article the following quote shows how repetition is key in history, “‘Propaganda’ said Goebbels ‘means repetition, and still more repetition.’ He added ‘The truth is whatever brings victory.’” (Bower 16) We can see the effects World War Two had on the world and how this repetition of propaganda encouraged and brainwashed the people of the era.
The philosopher Francis Bacon said that there are two different mechanisms to truth; recognition and familiarity. In conclusion the formula Lewis Carroll has stated does establish what we believe to be the truth. As a modern sophist we must realize that repeating a fact does not make it true. Through logic, emotions, and reasoning we must conclude what is really thought of as the truth. Many problems can come about when false information is passed down. We must remember repetition is only strengthening a point, we must try to put an end to this distribution of false data.
Works Cited
“Both men admired Hitler. But which one is the better propagandist; AS BRITAIN’S MOST REVILED HISTORIAN BLAMES GOEBBELS FOR THE HOLOCAUST, THE MAIL DRAWS SOME DISTURBING PARALLELS.” The Daily Mail 27 March 1996: 16
Malcolm X. “A Homemade Education.” The Seagull Reader essays Ed. Joseph Kelly. New York: Norton 2002. 134-143
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “On Truth and Falsity in an Extramoral Sense.” The Complete Works of Nietzsche ed. Oscar Levy ed.1. Vol. 2. New York: Russell & Russell 1908. 173-192.
